Weekly Wrapup: Week 3 (a bit late!)

Here it is, Monday morning, and it just occurred to me that I never did my weekly wrap-up for last week. So here we go. :)

Latin: We are continuing to love it. We just finished our second review lesson. So far Jamie is still having a blast learning.

Math: We are still reviewing in Horizons. Not much to report--we had a week just about the same as last week. I'm hoping we will get into some new stuff soon.

History: We started learning about the Vikings this week, which Jamie is enjoying. In Geography Songs we did the song about the Middle East. I'm still pondering what to sub in for Windows on the World--I have a few ideas but haven't settled on anything yet.

Read-Aloud: We are reading Ginger Pye. I'm liking this book a lot, and so is Jamie. We have the audiobook on reserve at the library and I am hoping it will come in this week so that we can listen to the chapters--between that and all our history reading, my throat is getting sore! :)

Language Arts: Jamie finished up Prairie School, read Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie, and started Riding the Pony Express this week. We have been continuing to work on the "curve letters" in cursive, as well as working with Diamond Notes. He's starting to balk a bit at Diamond Notes now that they're actually making him write sentences--I was hoping that wouldn't happen but I can't say I'm surprised, based on how he has been with creative writing in the past. He can (of course) write creatively all day long when it's at a time and on a topic of his choosing, but for schoolwork? Just forget it, it's like pulling teeth.

Science: Finally, an experiment! I have to say I was confused about the materials list Sonlight gave us for this week. It included a box of pudding and milk when there was no experiment, either on the DVD or in the book, that used them. We did think the experiment with the Jello and the kiwi fruit was pretty cool.

Extracurricular activities: Homeschool bowling club started this week. Originally, we were scheduled to be in the Tuesday at 1 pm club, which would have worked out much better for us schedule-wise. However, only 2 kids signed up for it so they moved us to the Wednesday at 10 club. We can deal with that. Jamie is enjoying it--he's on the bumper league currently, but I think if he keeps improving we will switch to the regular league for the next session.

Hope everyone else had a great week last week!! :)

Weekly Wrapup: Week 2

Here we are at the end of another week of homeschool. Some successes and some frustration this week, as usual. :)

Latin: I think I have already gushed about how much I love SongSchool Latin. I had been trying to keep Latin to 2 lessons a week--this week Jamie begged to do Latin every day except Tuesday! The 31 lessons in the book are not going to last long at this rate. :)

Math: Things were better this week. I haven't implemented the bingo idea yet, but I may not have to--I think Jamie and I inadvertently hit on another solution together! In Horizons Math there are almost always two rows of problems in each set, and I almost always let him skip one row unless it's something he is having trouble with. So this week instead of just crossing one out to begin with, I gave him a time limit for the first problem set and told him that if he got them done in the required time he could skip the second one. Seems to be working like a charm thus far. :) We will see what next week brings--math is still pretty much review for him as of this week so it's not really challenging him.

History: We have been studying the Byzantine Empire this week, as well as the rise of Islam. We looked at some really pretty pictures of the Hagia Sophia and talked about mosaics and how they are made. Thinking about doing a mosaic art project at some point soon...I saw a neat Magnetic Mosaic kit that looks fun. (Side note: we buy almost all our paper and art supplies from that site I just linked. They are awesome!)

Read-Aloud: We finished up Red Sails to Capri this week. I liked it more than Jamie did, I think, although he enjoyed looking at pictures and video of the Blue Grotto. It is really an amazing site--something to put on the wish list for world travel. :)

Language Arts: Jamie's continuing to like Diamond Notes, although he also continues to balk at more formal writing assignments--I'm hoping Diamond Notes will at least make them easier for him. We are progressing with cursive slowly but surely, and we read "The Long Way Westward" and part of "Prairie School" for readers this week. The dawdling seems to have moved over to LA this week which I really can't explain--he usually is great at doing his LA work.

Science: Jamie is upset about the lack of actual science experiments so far in Science 2, but I assured him there will be one for next week so he's very happy about that. In the meantime, we're still learning about animals. I am often somewhat amused by the notes in the teacher's manual about the Usborne books, let's just leave it at that. :)

Extracurricular activities: Nothing huge to note this week. I did get the forms sent in for Jamie's zoo classes and his classes at the Delaware Museum of Natural History, and I will be excited for him to start those soon.

Latin

I honestly just wish we could do Latin all day long right now. Jamie and I are both enjoying SongSchool Latin SO much. It is a really fun program. I was thinking about going from it to Prima Latina at the end of the SongSchool program, but I was looking at the website for the SongSchool program and I noticed that they have an older kid program that starts at 3rd grade level, so that would be perfect for us! Thinking about it...Jamie has also expressed interest in doing SongSchool Greek after we finish Latin so we will see. :)

Menu Plan Monday

Trying to get back in the swing of things with menu planning. It's hard when your garbage disposal is broken and your sink is leaking! Hopefully that will be fixed soon.



We're trying a couple of new things this week. First up is the recipe for tonight--I hope it will be good!

Monday: Crock-Pot Peppercorn Steak
Tuesday: Buttermilk Chicken Tenders with french fries
Wednesday: Chicken Fajita Quesadillas
Thursday: CORN/DIY night
Friday: spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread
Saturday/Sunday: Chinese Lemon Chicken with rice and veggies one of these nights, and we'll probably go out the other night.

Hope you all are having yummy stuff this week for dinner! We are making progress with math--today Jamie completed it in under 30 minutes! So happy!

Weekly Wrapup: Week 1

I have decided to try and write a little bit about our schoolwork for the week at the end of each week. Even if it's short I think it will still be good to have a record of what we've done at the end of the year. So, without further ado...

This was our first week of homeschooling for 3rd grade! Both Jamie and I were excited to get going. We are using Sonlight Core 2 this year with Sonlight 2 Intermediate LA and Science 2, and Horizons 3 for math. In addition we are doing "Conquering Cursive" as a cursive workbook and SongSchool Latin. I will be adding in some music theory/music reading lessons later on in the school year as we progress, but I wanted to ease in with a little less work at first.

This week in math: Completely review. Unfortunately this did not make Jamie dawdle any less. Worst length of time to complete 1 page front and back this week was 2 hours. On the up side, he had cut it down to around 40 minutes by the end of the week--but I know he can go faster. Trying to think of some creative solutions to get him to focus. We are also trying to do a Calculadders drill 2-3 times a week. This week we did Calculadders on Monday and Wednesday.

This week in history: We reviewed all of what we learned last year in the Usborne Book of World History. I did more of a question/answer format than the "reading names/dates while your child follows along" method the IG suggests, and it went well. We are forging on into new territory next week. We also started reading Explorer's News (like it), Red Sails to Capri (it's ok), and Window on the World (hated it so much I gave it away to a friend today). We are going to be looking for something good to replace WoW with--I have gotten a bunch of good suggestions from the Sonlight forums. We also started the Geography Songs book/CD. Jamie listened to the "Continents and Oceans" song and proclaimed it "One of the dumbest songs I have ever heard." Let's hope they get better! :)

This week in LA: We started Diamond Notes which so far seems to be a great writing program. Jamie read "Clara's Bookwagon" and started reading "Long Way to a New Land". We began cursive work as well as doing lessons in MCP Phonics C and Wordly Wise B. Jamie continues to have no problem at all with spelling words, and his handwriting has improved.

This week in Science: We have studied several different animals, including chimpanzees, bears, and tigers this week.

Electives: We worked through 2 lessons in SongSchool Latin this week. I am trying to alternate days with this and cursive, doing cursive on M/W/F and Latin on T/Th. Once cursive is easier for him I will move cursive in with LA every day and probably switch Latin to M/W/F and do music theory on T/Th. Jamie is enjoying learning Latin so far.

Extracurricular activities: Friends came over on Friday for a playdate and a trip to the bowling alley. The children's choir Jamie is in at church has their final performance on Sunday.

Long time with no posts, I know! I've been sort of addicted to Facebook recently so I have been doing a lot of my writing over there in tiny little bits. :) That said, we've been doing some fun stuff lately. Jamie is continuing to enjoy his classes at the Delaware Museum of Natural History. The class this month was called "What's Humming?", and it was about birds/insects of spring. Fun stuff! I am thinking about sending him to the summer camp they have there for a week or two this summer just for something fun for him to do, but I haven't made up my mind yet. Another option is the YMCA day camp for a week or two.

I have started to plan next year's schoolwork and will be placing my order shortly with Sonlight. I've decided to go with Core 2 (the followup to the world history we're doing this year--we are going up through the fall of Rome this year and next year we will go up through the beginning of the 20th century) with the 2 intermediate readers. I was thinking of doing the advanced readers because they are more his reading level, but looking at the language arts program that goes along with those readers, it's clear he needs the intermediate one. The advanced program has a lot of independent writing involved and he is just not there yet. One of the main things we're going to be working on next year is learning HOW to write.

Along with Core 2, we'll be doing Horizons math 3 (the Sonlight cores don't really correspond to grade level and in fact most people think it's best if you do them a year "behind", but he really is supposed to be in "third grade" next year and so we'll be doing third grade math) and probably a Latin program. I am excited about it--I think it will be a lot of fun, but I am also very looking forward to our summer break. We have about 8 more weeks of school to go which means we should finish up in mid-June.

I have also finally gotten back into meal planning! After I got back from my mom's earlier in the month I got lazy and we spent too much money eating out, but no more of that! I went to the grocery store today and was so proud of myself that I mostly purchased "ingredients" as opposed to prepackaged stuff. :) So here is my meal plan for this week:

Monday: spaghetti and meatballs, garlic cheese bread, salad
Tuesday: Citrus Roasted Chicken, Crash Hot Potatoes, veggies
Wednesday: pork chops, mac and cheese (for Jamie and me), mashed potatoes (for S), salad
Thursday: CORN/DIY night
Friday: meatloaf, mashed potatoes/mac and cheese, veggies
Saturday: chicken cutlets, french fries, salad
Sunday: fajita quesadillas

How Racism Works

A friend of mine posted this on her blog today. Regardless of who you are planning to vote for, I find it thought provoking.

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What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class? What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said “I do” to? What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization? What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard? What if Obama were a member of the “Keating 5”? What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

— Kelvin LaFond, Fort Worth